The Rise of Endymion

The Rise of Endymion is the fourth and final installment in the brilliant, massively ambitious series that began with the Hugo Award-winning Hyperion. Seamlessly continuing the narrative arc that began in Endymion, it brings one of the most significant accomplishments in modern science fiction to a resonant conclusion. Once again, we are immersed in the complex future that emerged in the aftermath of the Hegemony of Man, a future dominated both by the Catholic Church and by the artificially intelligent entities of the TechnoCore. Once again, we are caught up in the intertwined stories of Raul Endymion and Aenea, a young woman born from the union of a human mother—Hyperion’s Brawne Lamia—and the cybrid-based reincarnation of John Keats. Aenea is something new in the universe, a point of contact between disparate forms of existence. She has been charged with a unique—and uniquely difficult—destiny: to redirect the evolution of the human species. The Rise of Endymion concludes the account of Aenea’s attempts to achieve that destiny. The result is both an interstellar adventure on the grandest scale and a work of intellectual and philosophical richness. With great eloquence, Simmons offers us the vision of a universe that is itself a “minded thing,” a vitally sentient arena defined at its most fundamental level by the qualities of Empathy and Love. The novel—and the series as a whole—offers a humane, deeply considered view of human existence and argues powerfully for the value—the absolute necessity—of endless diversity and constant change. In this luminous meditation on a world filled with “chaos, clutter, and wonderful unseen options,” Simmons has created an epic work of enduring—and undeniable—importance.